At our school, issues are a constant issue – be it the food in the cafeteria, the curriculum of GPS/GPC/POH/ABC/XYZ, or the fact that over the course of the past year the soap in the bathrooms has been diluted to the point of being no more than glorified water. At no point in the history of NYU Shanghai has its community been satisfied with the state of this institution. And that’s perfectly okay. Every now and then, though, these frustrations and unmet expectations come to a head. Sometimes this manifests in Facebook blowouts with posts and comments flying, and sometimes it culminates in students wanting out which, in turn, sometimes culminates in getting out. This is totally okay, too. By the end of my first semester here, I wanted to leave. I wanted more challenging academics, a better class selection, a university that felt more like a university and that could offer me better advice than “try wrapping yourself in a blanket” when I called the mental health hotline in the midst of a panic attack. And so, homesick and fed up, I sent in my transfer applications and pepped myself up for my second and final semester at NYU Shanghai. The fall of my sophomore year began with me scrubbing indelible layers of dirt from the floor of my closet-sized dorm room at Columbia University. Subsequently, the spring of my sophomore year began with me moving my things into Motel 268 because I transferred back. (In technically accurate terms, I returned from a retroactively-taken leave of absence since NYU Shanghai doesn’t accept transfer students). Initially, I transferred out because I wanted a more diverse selection of more challenging classes. I wanted an institution that I, as a student, could rely on. I thought that Columbia meant academic excellence, institutional efficiency, and ensured personal fulfillment. And so, when Columbia welcomed me with open arms, a litany of core requirements, and a score of problems to rival the ones I thought I had escaped at NYU Shanghai, I was caught off guard and, frankly, pretty bummed. When it comes to people airing their grievances against NYU Shanghai, one of the counter arguments I most frequently hear is that, “You knew what you were signing up for.” You knew you were going to a school in China; you knew this was a new institution; you knew this wasn’t NYU. And yes, I/you/we all knew those things. But for all that we knew, we couldn’t have anticipated how those things would impact our daily lives until we were living them. Prior to my freshman year, I was thrilled to be going to school in China, but I had no way of knowing how acutely homesick I would be until I was already here. Yes, I knew the school was still in the process of being built, but I didn’t know how little fun it is to have no hot water for a week in the middle of winter. These things are no one’s fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault that we, the students, aren’t warned in advance of all the personal ways in which these things will affect us (how could we be?), and it isn’t our fault for being affected. It is equally not our fault if we decide that the situation in which we find ourselves is not the one we want and then set out to change it. Yes, we knew, in objective terms, more or less what we were signing up for and chose to sign up because and/or in spite of those terms. Choices, however, are subject to change. Simply because something is the right choice today does not necessarily mean that it will continue to be the right choice tomorrow, and, if tomorrow you decide a change is in order, I don’t think there is any inherent deficit of moral character implicated by attempting to do what is in your power to ameliorate your circumstances and make new choices. When I chose to leave NYU Shanghai, it wasn’t because I hated it or thought it was a bad school; it was because I had come to the conclusion that something else would suit me better, and I wanted to pursue it. The hitch was simply that, although it initially seemed to be for the best, my transfer did not continue to be the best choice for me. I was trading one set of problems for another, and as it turns out, for me the positives at NYU Shanghai did a much better job of counterbalancing its negatives than the positives of Columbia did of redeeming theirs. I had complained that classes at NYU Shanghai weren’t challenging or rigorous enough, yet at Columbia (which I had envisioned as the academic promise land) I found myself in Introduction to Evolutionary Biology with a class size of two (myself included) being taught by a charming but senile professor who described pandas as “carnivores that are strictly vegetarians.” In my Literature Humanities class I was required not so much to critically analyze texts, but rather to rattle off quotes from Medea and the names of myriad characters from the Iliad. I found out that hot water is equally hard to come by in the showers of 600 West 113th as it is in the showers of International Student’s Dormitory No. 2. I found out that with establishment comes bureaucracy. I found out that every school has dud classes, and that frat parties are a very special brand of boring. I found out that cafeteria food is intercontinentally disappointing. I felt that Columbia had just as many problems as NYU Shanghai; the only difference was that I could no longer blame them on the newness of my school. NYU Shanghai is in the unique position of having to constantly prove itself as it toddles toward its fourth year of existence. Any disappointment, any error, any shortcoming can be written off as evidence of our school’s inadequacy, when in reality it is simply a byproduct of the facts that a) our school is in its formative years and b) problems are universally inescapable. Any school comes with drawbacks and shortcomings and we, as students, have to pick which set of problems we’re willing to handle. I chose to come back to NYU Shanghai because for me the vibrancy of our community, the strength of our friendships, and the standalone fact that we are in China made the problems worth dealing with. In lofty terms, my decision to transfer back was made on the basis of what I felt would make me a better person. In simpler ones, it was made on the basis of what would make me happy. I truly believe that when making decisions, personal happiness is not a bad compass to follow. If you find yourself unhappy, there is no shame in pursuing whatever paths you can towards happiness. If you make a choice that at some point stops being the right one, the act of making a new one implies no inherent moral deficit. Ultimately, it isn’t fair to say that NYU Shanghai is a good or bad school. It is a school with drawbacks and it is a school with marked advantages. For some people the advantages will outweigh the shortcomings and for some people they won’t. For many there will be no way of knowing until they give it a try. Some will need to make new choices. All of the above is okay. The fact that some people like NYU Shanghai and the fact that some people don’t are not mutually exclusive truths. Along the same lines, the fact that NYU Shanghai is a “good” school or a “bad” school simply isn’t a fact. I think that the best thing that we, as the community of NYU Shanghai, can do is support each other, whether that’s supporting each other here in Shanghai or supporting each other as we pursue other ends in other places. This school may be small, but it has room enough for dissatisfaction, joy, anger, accomplishment, frustration, failure, and success. We are a young institution and we have issues to resolve, but our shortcomings do not dispel our worth. For the time being, we are able to blame the inadequacies of our school on its newness, but NYU Shanghai will continue to be ridden with problems as long as it continues to exist, just like any other school. What I propose is that we come together to celebrate our strengths, to improve what we can, to accept that the bad doesn’t negate the good, and to support each other in continually pursuing what is best for ourselves. This article was written by Anna Schmidt. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: shanghai.nyu.edu